


What's Done is Done

by ThisWasInevitable



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Death, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Pre-Relationship, TAZ-Amnesty, don't worry they work it out, indruck, spoliers for ep 28-30
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-29
Updated: 2019-06-29
Packaged: 2020-05-28 18:07:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19399561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThisWasInevitable/pseuds/ThisWasInevitable
Summary: And cannot be undone.OrIndrid apologizes. Duck grieves.





	What's Done is Done

**Author's Note:**

> MY MOTH HAS RETURNED
> 
> Annnnd the first thing I'm gonna do is subject him to some vaguely canon compliant angst. This was inspired by Ducks comment about knowing someone who could help them get past the feds, because my take was he meant (and was missing) Ned. 
> 
> You don't get over seeing a friend get shot in front of you in two months, is what I'm saying.

Red.

Duck sees red, red glass, red in the edges of his vision.

Indrid grins, wide, surveys the assembly of heroes and civilians, Sylphs and humans. 

“I have more to say. But there is something I must attend to first. Duck, a word?” From where he’s standing he sees one pale brow arch. Then Indrid turns, walks back towards the Winnebago.

“Be right back.” He mutters, follows him out and into the cramped trailer. 

Indrid pulls him into hug. He freezes, not sure why this is happening.

“I’m sorry.” The lilting voice by his ear is deathly soft, “I’m so sorry.”

Indrid steps back, gaze darting here and there behind his glasses. 

“Gonna need you to be more specific.”

“Ned.” The word drops from his mouth with a thud, sends ripples of emotion through Duck. “He was your friend. He helped save me. He was, well, not a _good_ man in some ways but he was brave and he was your friend and I wasn’t, I couldn’t. I didn’t…” He looks at Duck, gesturing helplessly at the air. 

“Yeah, would’ve been awful nice to have someone who could’ve seen all that shit comin'.” Duck should be gentle, but all his mind offers is Aubrey’s face, tear-streaked. Ned, eyes open and unseeing. 

“I had my reasons.”

Anger is fluid, can conform into the shape of the target that presents itself. 

“‘M sure you did. Don’t make much difference to the dead. Not sure they’ll make much difference to the livin'.”

“The living will take my help, even if they don’t take my apologies. At least that’s the way it usually goes.”

“How kind of you to decide you’ll even offer it in the first place, now that half the town is wrecked and Mama’s god-knows-where and people are dead. Goddamn it _where were you_?” Indrid opens his mouth to speak but Duck cuts him off with a wave of his hand, “no, know what, I don’t care all that fuckin' much. All that matters now is you can help us fix the fuckin' mess we’re in. Was that all you pulled me in to fuckin' say? Some pathetic attempt at apologizin' for Neds-” His own small sob surprises him, as do the tears threatening his eyes.

“As you are already aware of my thoughtlessness, I have something I may as well confess.” Indrid’s voice is small, hands toying with his necklace, “when I saw who it was. Who’d been shot. I felt grief, of course but also” with what’s clearly a large effort he meets Ducks eyes “relief. It could have been any of the three of you. It could have been you.”

“Some days I wish it fuckin' had been!” He snarls and Indrid shrinks backwards, “Maybe I would’ve survived.”

“No” Indrid shakes his head “no, no. Not a chance. Never a chance, no. Lost you, each time, so many, saw, saw you.” He collapses onto the ground, drawings crunching beneath him, face buried into his hands. The noise coming from between his fingers isn’t human; a high, reedy, sad screech. 

Duck is grieving and angry. But he isn’t cruel. Carefully, he kneels down in front of Indrid. Feelings, softer ones, tap at his mind. He’d liked Indrid, had wanted to get to know him better. Had found himself thinking about that strange face with no small amount of longing after he left.

“I c-cared about all of you, but when I was gone it was you I thought of. You are brave and capable and kind and I, I wanted to be near you and then when the shapeshifter came there were so many futures where you didn’t survive and I couldn’t turn back, couldn’t come. I see so many deaths, repeated and repeated, even now when you all were planning it was like having a thousand televisions screaming disaster in my mind please, I can fix this.”

Duck rests his hands on Indrids shoulders. The taller man doesn’t look up, instead falls forward against him. Grips his jacket like a drowning man clinging to driftwood.

“Forgive me.”

“Why?”

“Please, I know I d-don’t, don’t deserve it.”

“I meant why me. Why ask me for that?”

Indrid looks at him, shakes his head, “don’t ask me to say it right now. Have mercy and let me be vague.”

“Alright. I forgive you.” Indrid presses back against him, still shuddering. Duck finds himself blinking back tears. 

“Don’t feel real. Him bein' gone. That’s the funny thing about not bein' a seer, or, uh, not bein' one quite like you. Don’t repeat a million times before it happens. Sure as hell repeats after though. Makin' you wonder what you coulda done different. Wishin' you knew how to fit a truth that tears you up into your life.”

Indrid isn’t shuddering anymore. 

“When someone disappears from your life, you start thinkin of all the things you didn’t say. All the, well, futures you thought you had. I just,” he sighs, leans against Indrid “I wish I knew him dyin' would be worth it in the end.” 

“I wish I could tell you. Sadly, it does not work like that. But I will do everything in my power to make it so.” 

Duck presses their foreheads together, hoping to christ it signals to Indrid what he needs it to. That he really doesn't blame him. That he's glad he's back.

“We’ll make it work. Or, uh, guess we’ll die tryin.”

Indrid huffs out a dry laugh.

“Indeed.”

“We oughta go back inside. Start plannin.” He stands, offers Indrid his hand and pulls him up. Doesn’t let go right away, pretends not to know why.

“Where’re you stayin?” 

“I’m not sure” Indrids eyes brighten when Duck looks at him with a soft smile, “but if you happen to know of an apartment with a large parking lot near some friendly face, that might do nicely.”


End file.
